Harvard Prof. Wisse: Jews Should Vote for Romney

American Jews who care about Israel should vote for Mitt Romney, says Ruth Wisse, a Harvard professor of Yiddish and comparative literature.

“Given the unique danger to the Jewish state and Israel's exceptional role in the defense of democracy, one might expect American Jews to vote for whichever party and politician is likelier to secure both countries,” the author of "Jews and Power" writes in The Wall Street Journal.

“But Unlike Christians, Muslims and many others, Jews are a self-defined minority with a strategy of political accommodation to surrounding majorities.”

Their yearning for peace may come out of fear or it may come out of hope. But either way, “Jews have ingested the accusations against them, hoping to avoid conflict by holding Israel responsible for the aggression against it,” Wisse says.

“Consequently, Jews can be found among those Americans who believe that their weakness —and that of Israel — would advance world peace.”

Israel isn’t a big issue for many Jewish voters. But for those whom it is, President Barack Obama's call last year for Israel to return to its 1967 borders is one good reason to vote against him, Wisse says. His courting of Arab favor is another.

And the strongest argument inadvertently comes from liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Wisse says. Dowd recently noted that the Republican ticket is going back to "the moral, muscular foreign policy" rejected by Obama.